[aprssig] Secutiry for the aprs protocol and software

[William Gery]

Curt

What I mean by "compromised" is  could the APRS data steam be used to
infect the receiving systems or gain control ? 

If the APRS display was affected we can live with that and would
recognize it for what it is.

Bill

On Tue, 2009-08-25 at 16:40 -0700, Curt, WE7U wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Aug 2009, William Gery wrote:
> 
> > I understand that any system on the Internet can be compromised. That
> > brings this question to mind.
> >
> > If an Internet APRS server is compromised, could the APRS data stream be
> > used to compromised other systems receiving APRS data from the affected
> > system.
> 
> I believe the answer is no, but it depends on your definition of
> "compromised".
> 
> If by compromised you mean that somebody has gained control of the
> system, then I believe this would be nearly impossible with an APRS
> data stream.
> 
> If you mean can the remote server inject data that would mess up
> your local display of APRS data, then of course the answer is yes.
> However, the APRS protocol already allows anyone to move anyone
> else's station and/or objects/items anyway.  There's no additional
> capability to be gained by taking over a remote server to do so.
> 
> One thing that could be accomplished would be disruption of a small
> portion of the APRS internet stream.  People would connect to other
> servers to route around the problem once they realized there was a
> problem.
> 
-- 
William Gery - KA2FNK
Office 816-268-3152
Cell   240-501-8695

Regional Systems Manager
National Weather Service
Central Region Headquarters
7220 NW 101st Terrace
Kansas City, MO 64153-2371